Uncle John's Bathroom Reader The World's Gone Crazy (57 page)

WHERE ARE THEY NOW?

Today, Jane Akre is the editor-in-chief of
InjuryBoard.com
, a consumer-protection group. Steve Wilson is an investigative journalist in Detroit, Michigan. And he’s still making waves and making enemies: In 2008 he reported that Detroit’s embattled mayor, Kwame Kilpatrick, violated terms of his bond by traveling to Canada without giving prior notice, and Kilpatrick was sent to jail.

And what about Posilac? Because of the potential health risks to both humans and cows, by 2000 the synthesized protein was banned in several countries—including Japan, Australia, Canada, and most of Europe. But it’s still legal in the United States.

Tom Cruise’s daughter’s name, Suri, means “pickpocket” in Japanese and “horse mackerels” in Italian
.

SEBASTIAN
CABOT SINGS!

…and some other albums that you probably don’t need to hear to know that they weren’t such a good idea
.

J
oe Pesci
,
Vincent LaGuardia Gambini Sings Just for You
In 1992 Pesci starred as the Italian-American lawyer Vincent LaGuardia Gambini in
My Cousin Vinny
. More than six years later, he released an album in character as Gambini, a stereotypical New York Italian, singing old standards such as “What a Wonderful World” and “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love,” all littered with expletives. While some listeners hailed it as a comedic success, the timing of the marketing campaign was off—so much time had passed since the movie came out that the album fell flat. Bad reviews didn’t help, either; one critic described it as “a mound of failed songs and lame jokes.”

Scarlett Johansson,
Anywhere I Lay My Head

Many young actresses (Lindsay Lohan, Hilary Duff) have released pop albums, but Johansson (
Lost in Translation, Girl With a Pearl Earring
) did something different—an album of songs written by the gravelly voiced, world-weary songwriter Tom Waits. Despite a good supporting cast (a guest spot by David Bowie and production by critically acclaimed musician Dave Sitek), the album tanked—perhaps because audiences couldn’t relate to a glamorous, 22-year-old millionaire singing lines like “Give a man gin, give a man cards / give an inch he takes a yard / and I rue the day that I stepped off this train.”

Eddie Murphy,
Love’s Alright

Murphy recorded three albums of pop/soul music, including one in 1985 that featured his sole hit, “Party All the Time.” But, to his fans’ disappointment, none of his music had any trace of the humor or edginess that made Murphy a star comedian and actor. On his 1993 album,
Love’s Alright
(his last to date), he lined up a dozen celebrity cameos from megastars like Garth Brooks, Michael Jackson, and Paul McCartney for the opening track, “Yeah.” Any witty lyrics here? Not really—over a psychedelic backing track, Murphy and his famous friends take turns saying or singing “yeah.”

Study finding: 25% of people suffer from paranoid thoughts brought on by media sensationalism
.

Robert Mitchum,
Calypso Is Like So…

In 1956 and ’57, Harry Belafonte almost single-handedly ushered in a calypso-music craze in the U.S. with his two smash-hit albums,
Belafonte
and
Calypso
. Of all people to cash in on the fad, perhaps the least likely was the stone-faced, tough-guy movie star Robert Mitchum (The
Night of the Hunter, Thunder Road
). While filming a movie in Trinidad in 1957, Mitchum fell in love with the music. His album,
Calypso Is Like So
…, is a fairly authentic attempt, too, with steel drums and horns. But Mitchum couldn’t quite pull it off—even though he was a good enough vocalist to sing his own parts in several musicals, his voice wasn’t up to the challenge. And more embarrassing, if not a little racist, was the fact that he adopted an “island” dialect, singing “dis” and “dem” for “this” and “them.”

Rachael Ray,
Too Cool for School Mixtape for Kids

A hip tape of TV chef and talk-show host Rachael Ray singing for kids? Actually, no—Ray doesn’t sing or play an instrument on this 2006 album, none of the songs have anything to do with school, and it’s not even a tape, it’s a CD. The album is just a Ray-approved collection of pop songs that kids would theoretically like, such as Janis Joplin’s “Mercedes Benz” and Harry Nilsson’s “Coconut”—which also happens to be one of the few songs that have anything to do with food.

Sebastian Cabot,
Sebastian Cabot, Actor / Bob Dylan, Poet

Cabot was the hefty British character actor best known for playing Mr. French on the ’60s sitcom
Family Affair
. With his clipped, upper-crust accent and impeccable diction, his delivery is pretty much the opposite of Bob Dylan’s braying mumble. That made this 1967 album an especially odd choice, with Cabot half-singing, half-speaking the songs and poems of Dylan, who, at the time, was one of the hottest acts in music.

Singapore is the only country where adult children are legally responsible for supporting their parents
.

URBAN LEGENDS

Urban legends make this crazy world go ’round
.

T
HE LEGEND:
Kentucky Fried Chicken founder Harland Sanders (1890–1980) was a vehement racist and a member of the Ku Klux Klan. When he died, he bequeathed a large portion of his fortune and a percentage of KFC’s future profits to the KKK.

HOW IT SPREAD:
It’s unclear who started the rumor or why, but KFC is one of many companies that have fought off urban legends of secret racism. (There’s one about Tommy Hilfiger being disgusted that black people wear his clothes, and another that says that Microsoft’s Word thesaurus contains hidden bigoted messages.) Sanders, whose image on KFC buckets was designed to resemble a 19th-century Southerner, was a natural target.

THE TRUTH:
Sanders never made any public comments regarding race, and he wasn’t a member of the KKK, which by the mid-20th century was no longer the large, influential organization it once was. Further, Sanders sold the Kentucky Fried Chicken company in 1964, long before he died in 1980. Not only did he not donate a sum to the KKK, but since he no longer owned the company, he was in no position to divert its profits.

THE LEGEND:
Members of Alcoholics Anonymous can trade in their “sobriety chips”—medallions given out to celebrate a week, month, or year of alcohol-free living—for free drinks at any bar.

HOW IT SPREAD:
This legend has been around since at least the late 1940s, when the chips were first handed out at AA meetings. While nobody knows where it started, its spread reflects the misconception that alcoholism is merely a choice, and that alcoholics in recovery will backslide given the smallest opportunity to do so—like a free drink.

THE TRUTH:
A sobriety chip is a token and reminder to AA members to stay the course of sobriety, and that’s all. Bars do not accept them as currency.

Fully loaded: The back seat of the Lexus LS 600h offers a built-in electric shiatsu massager
.

THE LEGEND:
To permanently archive its vast library of audio recordings (speeches, historical events, classic American music), the Library of Congress is transferring everything to 78s—a record format that hasn’t been widely used since the 1940s. When considering its storage options, the LOC was concerned that 50 years from now there may be no way to read electronic data, whereas 78s can be listened to with a simple mechanical device. And while electronic recordings can be erased by a stray magnet, 78s are durable enough to last for centuries.

HOW IT SPREAD:
This rumor got its start as a fake news story on National Public Radio’s
All Things Considered
on April Fool’s Day 2003. Apparently, a few people didn’t get the joke.
THE TRUTH:
Astute listeners quickly noticed that something was off. Since one side of a 78 can hold only about three minutes of sound, and the Library of Congress has millions of recordings, that would take a
lot
of 78s—and several decades’ worth of work—and long songs and speeches would have to be split over several discs. As the faux news story pointed out, “Experts estimate that the archiving project will catch up with recordings made before 2003 by April 1, 2089.”

THE LEGEND:
Pop singer Lady Gaga was one of the hottest new musicians in 2009. While she had two #1 hits, she was perhaps more famous for her elaborate videos and stage show, and for wearing garish costumes, influenced by drag queens and the gay club scene, both on- and offstage. At one concert, she shocked audiences when she opened up her undergarments…and exposed male genitalia. So not only is she influenced by drag queens…she
is
a drag queen. Lady Gaga is a man.

HOW IT SPREAD:
The moment in question did happen, but it was a stage stunt—with a prosthetic, albeit a very real-looking one. A subsequent interview with singer Christina Aguilera helped spread the rumor: When a reporter asked Aguilera (who bears a resemblance to Lady Gaga) what she thought of Gaga, Aguilera said, “I don’t know who that is. Isn’t she a man?”
THE TRUTH:
Lady Gaga’s real name is Stefani Germanotta…and she’s a woman (we’re pretty sure).

Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen has donated $25 million to the search for extraterrestrials
.

ANIMALS FIGHT BACK!

If the world were less crazy, humans and animals might live harmoniously in some Disneyesque existence with lots of tra-la-las and Mr. Bluebirds on our shoulders and whatnot. But no—it’s a deer-eat-kid world
.

R
OUGHING THE PASSER
In October 2009, seven-year-old Brandon Hiles was playing football with his friend, nine-year-old Wyatt Pugh, when an errant pass sent the ball into the woods in their Wintersville, Ohio, neighborhood. Brandon ventured into the underbrush to retrieve the ball…and found himself face to face with “Devil Deer,” a large white-tailed buck known around the neighborhood for its aggressiveness. Devil Deer charged, and Brandon tried to run but was lifted up from behind and thrown to the ground. The deer started stomping on Brandon with its powerful hooves before Wyatt came to the rescue, brandishing a big stick. “I was swinging it like I had a sword in my hand,” he later bragged. After Wyatt whacked it several times, Devil Deer ran off. Brandon was bruised but otherwise okay.

BEARPLANE

In 2009 a bush pilot in Alaska landed his 1958 Piper Cub in a remote area for a day of fishing. When he returned to the plane that evening, it had been practically dismantled: Parts of the hull were torn off, three tires were flat, and the tail section had been ripped open. The pilot knew immediately that this was the work of a bear—it was looking for food in the cargo hold, which smelled fishy from a previous trip. Unfazed, the man radioed another pilot, who flew over and dropped three tires and three rolls of duct tape. The man put his plane back together and flew home (and cleaned it thoroughly).